Counseling for Anxiety

Anxiety is the felt sense of stress that is accompanied by increased heart rate and respiration. Our bodies are naturally responding to a perceived threat, fight or flight, is the natural response our body is recruiting to perceived danger.

These internal systems are thousands of years old and can’t distinguish the difference between the threat of a predator or a social interaction or even just the thought of a social interaction. Through therapy and our own efforts we begin to recognize when we are entering an anxious state and we can be in an anxious state a lot of the time. With this awareness through breathing techniques learned in therapy or on our own we can then begin to recognize and then to modify our anxiety.

When we begin to look at our narratives, belief systems and how we relate to others we can look for the root causes of our anxiety. Different individuals experience anxiety differently, from mild anxiety to overwhelming anxieties. The severity can be viewed from looking at our traumas and when in our lifespan they occurred. A trauma occurring at an early age can present differently in adult life then trauma occurring at different stages of development.

Anxiety goes far beyond the distress it causes in how we feel and how we interact with others. Anxiety affects our digestion.Food is pushed through the gut through a process called peristalsis which is inhibited when we become anxious. Often people people who have long term anxiety suffer from associated stomach ailments. We now know half of our feel good endorphins are produced in the stomach and have an affect on our mood. Anxiety can also cause hypertension which can lead to heart disease. Lowering our anxiety can have a positive effect on how we feel, our relationships and our health.